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Goatbert writes "I just read on the Consumerist about an XBOX Live user being banned for identifying herself as a lesbian. Despite appeals, Microsoft has stood by its position that merely mentioning that you are gay or lesbian is grounds for terminating your XBOX Live membership."

That's pretty sad that you think that's the solution. In fact, it's probably because everyone's knee jerk reaction is "sue" that this kind of crap happens.
Why else would they have this kind of policy unless they were trying to prevent being sued by someone who's "offended" that their child was exposed to a lesbian?

It was one of the first companies in the world to offer employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners and to include sexual orientation in its corporate nondiscrimination policy. Since 1989, Microsoft has supported and sponsored gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues at Microsoft. In 1993 an organized employee resource groupâ"Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Employees at Microsoft (GLEAM)â"was launched. GLEAM now has more than 700 members.

The big thing such parents worry about is that their children are exposed to gays that are not horrible monsters and thus the kids start seeing them as regular people... which the parents are trying very hard to prevent. These parents do not want to risk their kids seeing gays as people.. they want to see them unquestioningly as sick pedophiles that are destroying society, inhuman evil monsters that can not be related to.

THAT is why they don't want their kids exposed to gays in enviorments like this where they might actually *gasp* get along with them.

They'll just put a blanket ban on mentioning your sexual orientation or romantic status. The pride people will still be angry but they can't argue discrimination, at least not successfully (I'm sure they'll still argue it is discriminatory because it is in place solely to stem their pride speech, but people won't care anymore).

The "game" is being deliberately offensive/unprofessional, and then using one's "protected status" as an excuse or dodge. For example, a local TV studio had a black lesbian employee who was seen (by quite a few individuals) having sex with her girlfriend in a car in the parking lot. When this was reported to the managers and the police called, it was discovered that she (a) was in fact employed there (nobody had been risky enough to try to identify who it was, just that it was going on) and (b) that she hadn't clocked out - she was doing this on company time instead of doing her job.

The most she got was a formal reprimand in her file. You can damn well bet if it had been a white, straight male, there would have been an immediate no-questions-needed firing.

In either case, Microsoft is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The hard place being the users (who want "self-expression", whatever that means) and the rock being the ridiculous ESRB ratings system. Games can be "re-rated" based on user-created mods [softpedia.com] these days, and any game with an online component has to have the whole "user experience may change" nonsense (which is why the Wii still lacks voice chat; Big N doesn't want to take any risks at all).

So MS has a choice. They either leave the system completely open - and take the risk of being hounded and hounded and having their console have to be kept out of sight behind store counters and sent home wrapped in giant paper bags as if it were a $300 dirty magazine - or they have to be immensely censorious and deal with the aftermath of stuff like this in order to appease the ESRB's ratings crew and keep games available to be purchased.

Yeah, there will be boneheaded decisions. There will be decisions you personally feel are wrong. The reality is, they don't really have a choice. It's either little blowups like this, or painting a giant target on themselves for the witch hunt.

Last I checked a profile is *about a person*. How is it not personal? It can be about anything the person damn well pleases. Why would anyone want to read about any of these topics on Slashdot? I mean for crying out loud, the tagline of the site is "News for Nerds after all. Stuff that Matters." Most of the tags you're watching having little or nothing to do with nerds! Everything from ambulancechaser to vegemite, I mean really. Vegemite!What do you think this is, some kind of generic news aggregation site?

Why would anyone make public their fascination with vegemite, ambulancechasers, checkisinthemail, Mafia, Nazis, or even fucking nevergonnahappen in a NERD PROFILE?!?!? It's a nerd profile, not your fucking personal blog.

Can't decide which of the above two is better at exposing your utter hypocrisy.

Also, I don't hang my hat on being straight - do you really need to point out that you're gay in your xbox profile? I mean... really? I don't think you should be banned for doing it, but I think it's a little odd.

I run a guild in WoW, I myself am straight, but we have gay members in the guild. When ever we pick up someone new I make sure they are aware that there are gay men in the guild. Not because I'm trying to pimp them out (most of them are already married), but because people tend to be better about not tossing words like "fag" around or saying "that's gay" when they know that there are gay people around.

So yeah, I think it's perfectly acceptable to have someone post that they are homosexual on their profile. If it makes other people be a little more self conscious about how their words can come across and breaks the social norms of using homosexual terms as insults, then I think it's AWESOME.

I agree, homophobes definitely are not normal and should be condemned! Calling them "unnatural disgusting animals" does seem a bit extreme, however, even if all humans can technically be considered animals.

Stop it. Stop the Homophobia bullshit. There's no such thing as Homophobia. There are people that think homosexual conduct is immoral, or abnormal. That doesn't mean they have a phobia. A phobia is a clinical condition, recognized by psychologists. There's no such thing in the DSM. "Homophobia" is a marketing term for one side of the argument, a buzzword.

"User experience may change..." notices always have that little ESRB tag attached to them, even on Nintendo Wii games. The reason is that there is "user-generated" content on there. If you're playing Halo 3 with someone online, you can't guarantee that they won't start spewing obscene language everywhere. You can't guarantee that they're not going to use words that would make a sailor blush. You can't guarantee that someone won't insert a crude drawing [vgcats.com] on in-game art, or do something else [penny-arcade.com] with a webcam... you just can't.

That little tag is the ESRB throwing up their hands and saying "screw it, we can't actually rate this", but if a game got a bad reputation for user behavior with enough substantiated reports, they COULD theoretically use that to "adjust" the game's rating retroactively.

What about indirectly identifying yourself as something? I'm really confused here, since I have been playing Fable II for the last couple of days.

The whole game is LOADED with references to sexuality. You can have condoms, unprotected sex, extramarital sex.

Characters in the game are either straight, gay, lesbian, or Bi. Men can have sex with men, women can have sex with women, hell I have not tried yet, but I think I can have sex with the dog.

There is a whole quest, and scene in the game, where the father has to come to terms with the fact his farmer son is gay and just wants to live in the city. As part of the quest, you need to find him a date. Bring a man for extra points. There is even a point in the game where you can change your sex. A transexual dream to be sure:)

Fable II is an ONLINE experience too. Some parts of the game you cannot unlock unless you are playing with other players.

EVEN BETTER. Men can marry other Men. Not civil unions. Marriage.

So how does MS apply their policies to a game like this where just about everything around you is invitation to debauchery, lewd and depraved acts, lesbians getting it on with lesbians?

Please note, I am not complaining. I already had my 5th lesbian today in the game.

Actually, I've heard an acceptable explanation from a parent about the whole "exposing children to sexual orientation" while discussing MTV. It's not "omg, monsters!!!!" like you seem to think (albeit, some ignorant schmucks will take that stance). He told me the following:

"I leaves me in the awkward position of attempting to explaining sexual orientation to a 9 year old before they fully understand what sex and relationships even are. If my child isn't mature enough to completely understand sex, how the hell is he going to understand what sexual preference is, let alone understand it?"

...but I can think of some misguided but almost rational reasons for the policy:

- Specifying sexual orientation could be construed as prospecting for potential partners. XBox Live is not a dating service.

- Specifying your sexual orientation explicitly could be interpreted by some as a politicized statement. XBox Live is not a political forum. ps- this falls apart when Microsoft encourages you to contact your elected officials to protest whatever they are planning to to do that might impact Microsoft's XBox business. It's only a matter of time, if not before this gaffe, soon enough.

- Advertising anything beyond game-related facts is just asking for trouble. XBox Live is intended for game-related discussions, facts, and entertainment. Anything else is a distraction. Of course, gaming is a distraction, so this is logically inconsistent on some level.

And I think all of these arguments, save the first, are lost and pointless.

The first argument is also pointless, but for a different reason. I haven't seen a public forum on the Internet yet that didn't turn into an A/S/L chatfest. It's the way it is, and the younger the audience, the faster it happens.

Good luck with that policy, Microsoft. You will lose this fight, or lose more $ than it could possibly be worth.

Seconded. In my experience, MS is one of the most gay friendly employers out there. They are extremely clear that sexual orientation is a protected class and that all benefits can be shared with either a spouse or same sex domestic partner (which in a sense is more advantageous to gay people, since I can't share my benefits with my girlfriend unless I marry her). As the blog post itself indicates, the Human Rights Campaign (that would normally get on the case) "says Microsoft has a positive image with them." Without additional evidence, I'm inclined to think there were other reasons for the ban.

The offense on behalf of the LGBT community is that we shouldn't be forced to hide who we are, or to deny it, or to downplay it. I agree that some people do make a point of broadcasting it to the world, and get pretty damned annoying, but so do some straight people, and you really need to calm the fuck down if you're offended by seeing a couple of girls holding hands, or if you hold a queer couple sucking face in a park to a different standard than you would a straight couple: that act is offensive because they should get a room, not because it's two guys making out instead of a guy and a girl.

I don't really think that she should be advertising on her gamer profile that she's a lesbian, but I don't exactly make a secret of my sexuality when I'm playing WoW, either. If I get hit on, I politely decline and explain that I like girls. *shrugs*

Also... do you have any idea how often girls get hit on by horny retards in games? Often enough that a lot of them will pretend to be male (I used to, hence the/. name) just to avoid it. She was probably saying she was a lesbian in a misguided attempt to discourage them: I've found, from experience, that while some guys will stop hitting on you when they find out they're not getting anywhere, a lot will just try harder in the hopes of racking up a conversion. My usual response to that is something like "if you point that thing at me, I'll remove it with a rusty spoon", and even that's not enough to discourage all of them. Until you've actually *been* a female gamer, you're not qualified to really comment on what kind of things we need to do in order to avoid being hit on by retards.

Fortunately, there's an operation to fix that, if you're interested. I have some friends who've been through it, and they're quite happy with the results.:)

Why would anyone write about their husband/wife, sexual orientation, race, religion, or their favorite breed of dog in a GAMER PROFILE?!?!? It's a gamer profile, not your fucking personal blog.

Because it is natural for people to identify with other people who share interests or status. What's wrong with a gay gamer being interested in playing with other gay gamers? What about Christian gamers wanting to play with other Christian gamers?

Merely taking offense to someone saying "I am gay" is incredibly senseless. That's not even the problem, people don't have to say it, they can 'act' it and it's offensive.

As much as homosexually frightens anyone, I am far more frightened by mindless attitudes.

Diners are completely private entities, owned by people who sunk money into the business? Are you suggesting it's okay to stop blacks from sitting at the counter?

Morally? No. Legally? Yes. And it's also legal for a lunch counter in Harlem to refuse service to whites.. And despite what you think, the legal right to "refuse service" has never changed. What changed were attitudes, because of the dedication of protestors, and the impact they had on public opinion. Read up on the Greensboro Sit-Ins. Authorities never made Woolworth's desegrate; they did so because the protests were starting to hurt their business. When a group of sit-in protestors at another business tried to press their legal right to use the facility, they lost.

In a pre-cursor to the Woolworth sit-ins, on June 23, 1957, seven students organized by a local pastor were arrested in Durham, North Carolina at the Royal Ice Cream Shop for staging a sit-in in the "whites only" section. [12] After being convicted in North Carolina courts, the seven appealed their case all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which refused to hear their case.

It was the use of organized protest, public awareness, and economic boycotts that desegregated lunch counters. Not the law. The didn't come into it until it addressed issues of equal access to public services.... i.e. schools, courts, etc. No one ever told a restaurant they had to desegregate. They did because it was necessary to survive economically.

Strangely enough around half of all girls/women on Slashdot that I have seen identify themselves as female have also identified themselves as lesbians, or at the very least bisexual with a strong preference toward other women. Specifically, I have seen approximately 6 girls/women who have stated they really are not interested in men, out of about 10-12 who have mentioned being female on threads I have read.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Is this a general trend, where lesbians are more likely to be interested in technology than the average girl, or perhaps a girl who is interested in technology more likely to be a lesbian than average?

so it's not natural to derive consentual pleasure from physical contact with someone of the same gender, even though it occurs in plenty of other species, but it is natural to believe an invisible man created the universe and psychicly talks to us.

if they really banned her because she claims she's a lesbian (and not because she was flaming or being aggressive or intolerant of other people), then they should be banning anyone who claims to have a boyfriend, girlfriend, to be of a particular race or nationality or religion because that may offend someone as well--I'm sure many Christians would rather find out their child was homosexual than find out they were athiest or converting to Islam.

I'm sure the new generation on the whole has gotten over most of it's homophobia [blah, blah, blah]...

It's not about homophobia. It's about gaming.

Xbox Live isn't a dating service, gay or straight. I have yet to see anything that disputes that the user would have been similarly banned if they had "I'm heterosexual" in the profile.

Like it or not, sexual orientation is a mature subject. Frankly, it sounds to me like the user did, in fact, either have an agenda to push or was soliciting something. I really want to know just why did she feel compelled to express her sexual orientation in her profile? At any rate, I'm pretty sure that if I put something like, "I'm into bondage and have a latex fetish" in my profile, I'd be just as banned as she is, even though last time I checked, I'm straight.

I consider myself about as enlightened as they come, but there's a time and a place for everything. Microsoft's gaming service is neither the time nor the place to express sexual preferences, and Microsoft was perfectly justified in banning this user. Just as justified, incidentally, as they would be when they hopefully banned the people who made sexual slurs when they encountered her.

I don't have anything against gay people. What I do have a problem with are people—gay or straight or anything else—who use everything in life as a forum for their cause, even in "neutral" places such as an online gaming service.

Oh, and if you think you're getting the whole story from the banned user, you're incredibly naive. Microsoft most certainly wouldn't ban a user so quickly unless either 1) the user was doing something much more questionable than merely having "lesbian" in her profile that she's not telling us here, or 2) she was warned beforehand about her behavior and chose to continue engaging in violating the terms of service.

Everyone who plays online games knows that it's actually moderately difficult to get banned unless you're incredibly stupid or actually trying, which is another reason that I think the user is either soliciting something or pushing an agenda. In either event, she's doing the gay community a disservice by being needlessly confrontational, not helping them.

Appeal to authority is a type of logical fallacy. But it is also a logical fallacy to assume an conclusion is wrong just because the argument uses a logical fallacy. There are good, simple arguments against murder. Specifically, we have almost all agreed to the social contract that states: I don't want to be murdered, therefore, I agree not to murder and to punish murderers. See how simple that is?

I have never heard a good moral argument for denying anyone their right to express their love how they choose, given that that expression doesn't violate any other agreements they may have.

My current working hypothesis is that the 'homosexuality is wrong' meme is part of a larger, dysfunctional social dynamic. This hypothesis predicts that cultures that are more isolated in space and time from certain 'epicenters of violence' will show certain traits, namely: no ritual genital mutilation, no ritualized child abuse, no social hierarchy, no strict sex roles, and no sexual taboos, including adultery, homosexuality, or even incest. The hypothesis also predicts that in those cultures, each of those sexual activities will happen less often than in cultures where they are forbidden.

In my opinion, the evidence seems to support this hypothesis, although it is hotly disputed by some. Such cultures have existed, do exist, and they are quite isolated from said epicenters of violence. For references, you may want to start with The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff, and Saharasia by James DeMeo.

If I'm right, it doesn't prove homosexuality is not wrong. But wrong is not the default position, one must come up with a good reason, one that the vast majority can agree to, for censoring the behavior of another if that behavior doesn't harm you directly. And just to be clear, 'moral outrage' is a type of self-harm.

As for sociopaths, they should behave according to the generally accepted principles such as 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you, if you were in their shoes,' because those principles make sense and give them the greatest likelihood of success in life. That's the same reason most of us are born with a conscience and very few people are sociopaths: because it makes sense, even at a genetic level. Cooperation is just as universal a principle as competition is, that is obvious even to those of us who don't believe in a higher power.

Can you prove that most of the world disapproves of homosexuality? I personally know a few Muslims, plenty of Christians, and a few Jews who do not disapprove. I don't know any Taoists who disapprove. Or Buddhists. Or Satanists. The one Baha'i I know is personally against it, but wouldn't tell anyone else not to. I don't know any Hindus well enough to have gotten around to discussing sexuality. Or Jains. And that's just considering my practicing friends & acquaintances, most of the people I know may say they are Christian, but they don't really do anything about it. And they really don't care one way or another about homosexuality. But one's friends do not a random sample make, eh?

If you believe that life is hard and the world is cruel, as your sig says, then you do not trust in your God. I know devout Christians, I'm friends with devout Christians, and they are joyful people. You need to listen more in church. Or maybe get a different church, some are filled with hate.

In closing, let me leave you with a quote from Stephen Roberts, "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

And like I asked before, WHAT does your sexual orientation NEED to be displayed for?

What does any other personal information NEED to be displayed on a personal profile for? She thought it was a prominent enough part of her personality to display on her profile. She may not NEED to, but why shouldn't she?

We could go on and on, but let's remember one thing... it's THEIR Xbox Live, not ours.

Who was saying it wasn't? How is this relevant? Of course they have the legal right to discriminate against certain groups, but does that make it morally justifiable?

it is Microsoft's rulebook. Don't like it? Don't join.

Good thing it was made clear to her that she would be banned for including personal information in her personal profile before she purchased an Xbox or paid for an account. Oh wait, it wasn't. As for me, I won't be buying an Xbox 360 or paying for an account. I don't like it, so I won't join. I will, however, continue to bitch about Microsoft's wrongdoing on the internet.

If a user were to identify as black in their profile, it should have just as much impact as if they identify as homosexual... that is to say, none.

However, as in any situation, we must consider all sides of the story. Without knowing more about the actual contents of this user's profile and her activities, it's unrealistic to conclude either that there was an on-line gang of trolls who spend their days creeping profiles and stalking people with particular things in their profiles, or that the user was deliberately drawing attention to her sexual orientation. (Joining most multi-user games should not cause a user's complete profile to be broadcast to all other users in the same area.)

For this story to make sense, there had to be some degree of advertising or seeking of information about sexual orientation beyond that which is shown by default (and whomever advertises or seeks such information is in part motivated by something beyond basic gameplay). Between those extremes, the most effective response to harassment is not to drag the harassers into several different game areas to seek some kind of assistance from bystanders and disrupting their on-line experience, but to go directly to someone in authority. (For a bystander, what would a reasonable and non-game-disruptive response be to harassment of someone else?)

If someone ran through several rooms in a mall or school complaining about the pack of people giving chase, everyone would be detained for causing a disruption with punishment handed out later, regardless of whatever protected classes any of the participants might also fall into.

Gay parades were created to show that homosexuality is not a small minority, preventing discrimination against them. Some homosexuals believe they should 'parade' themselves all the time for this reason.

There would be Human Rights complaints if you organized a Straight Pride parade. "We're straight, and that's great!"

Of course, because hetrosexuality is considered the 'default' sexuality, so you wouldn't need to.

See, that's the problem right there. Hetro isn't the 'default' sexuality, it's *a* sexuality. Classifying it as 'default,' or 'normal', is classifying everything else as 'abnormal.' It's like saying 'male' or 'female' is the 'default.' Nope.

You seem to be implying that discussing sexuality with children against the will of their parents in inappropriate places is perfectly fine. Is that correct?

Nice straw man. Point to me where she did this?

You seem to be entirely happy to discuss sexuality on a public website, aren't you worried that you're forcing it onto children without the consent of the parents? Pweease won't somebody think of the children!

Of identifying your sexual orientation in your profile anyway? Leave that for your Facebook/Myspace profiles or your blog, or maybe even shut up about your sexual orientation like all of us straight people do about ours. Just a thought anyway.

Because it says "tell us about yourself", dumbsh*t. Does that mean something different in your world?

And if you think that straight people don't blather about their orientation too, with no penalties at all, you obviously don't play a lot of Xbox.